BY the time I got to the Phoenix, I was only twenty four hours from Tulsa. Standing behind the bar was landlord Barry Stickney, one-time driver for Gene Pitney, the high-pitched Sixties singing sensation from the States, who used to wow northern fans with hits such as Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa, I'm Gonna Be Strong and Looking Through The Eyes Of Love.

Barry, 69, and his wife, Barbara, took over the Phoenix in York's George Street last November and last night he spoke of his star connection with relish.

"I was a driving instructor in my hometown of Wakefield and used to hire out cars too. One day, out of the blue I got a call to pick up Gene Pitney from Leeds/Bradford Airport. I said OK 'cos I was getting paid. I wasn't interested in music so there I was, standing at the arrivals gate with a big cardboard meet'n'greet sign which read Jean Pitney in big letters.

"I was expecting a woman! I'd never heard of Gene Pitney."

His eyes sparkle and the laugh lines become crevices as Barry recalls his first encounter with a star.

"Gene laughed about the sign and we got on great after that. I drove him to gigs at places such as Batley Variety Club, and fun palaces in Leeds, Wakefield and Middlesbrough."

Stickney and Pitney - sounds like a double act, doesn't it? - hit it off so well together that Gene used to pop round to Barry's mum's.

"One day I was sitting in front of the telly at me mam's watching Wakefield Trinity versus Castleford, drinking a pint mug of tea and eating a bacon buttie, when she shrieked: 'What's that big Rolls Royce doing outside our front door, Barry?'

"I said: 'It's Gene Pitney from America, mam, I'm driving him about,' Then she got even more agitated when she saw him heading up our path.

"She said: 'Keep him out there for minute while I tidy up.'"

Later when Pitney was touring Britain, the star took flowers and chocolates to Barry's mam when she was seriously ill in Wakefield Hospital.

"He didn't even tell me he'd gone to see her until after," recalls Barry, "He was a great fella."

In return Barry introduced Pitney to the delights of pork crackling.

"He had never had crackling until he met me," says Barry. "Apparently in America butchers cut off all the fat. I showed Gene how to score, salt and cook pork skin and he used to love it."

So there you have it, Stickney'n'Pitney chewing the fat back in the swingin' Sixties and early Seventies when men were men and women were hard to get.

- NEVER mind the year-long row raging over plans to extend York's Coppergate shopping centre. It's time to roll out the barrel.

While all the experts and architectural purists have been expounding the merits or otherwise of this controversial scheme, they have all missed the biggest bloomer of all.

It's the barrel which forms part of the gateway awning at the entrance to the retail centre.

Some profound thinker thought the barrel would be a good idea.

The mastermind probably reasoned that the ancient name, Coppergate, was a corruption of Coopergate, meaning "street of barrelmakers".

How quaint! But what a load of tosh.

Yes, the word gate (pronounced as 'garter') is the Norse word for street.

But anyone knows that the place name derived from "cupair", meaning bowl.

In other words, the Viking village found when this area was excavated in the late 1970s showed that this was a street of bowl makers.

So whatever the new plans show, let it include the vital change to the entrance.

Instead of the barrels, let's have a load of old bowls.

-THIS little snippet for our Can We Help? column brought tears to my eyes. It read: "Free neutering available, 14th February to 16th March for people on low income through Cats Protection free neutering campaign on first come first served basis...."

Ouch! This is no way to treat people just because they are cash-challenged.

Odd that free neutering starts on Valentine's Day, isn't it?

-City of York Council famously pride themselves on their use of plain, understandable English so I was gobblydegook-smacked when I read the following guff on their website from the acting head of Leisure Services in the section headed Decision-making online:

"Above all, a vibrant and widely-owned plan with a clear action plan can contribute greatly to a vision of the kind of city we want York to be..."

"Establish broad cultural policies under the overarching strategy...".

"We need the kind of vision of the Tate Modern or Opportunity In Derry, to create an international centre for conflict management..."

Please, please save me from this www.tripe.con.uk

-NATURALLY I have a dread of judges but I have to doff my tricorn to Judge Paul Hoffman.

You would think that guiding one jury through the intricacies of the law is enough work for one day. But Judge Hoffman had four juries trooping in and out of his courtroom at York Crown Court recently.

He started his day by summing up to a jury trying a burglar. Once they had retired to consider their verdict, he welcomed jury number two. They heard the prosecution and defence evidence so quickly, he had completed his second summing-up of the day by 1pm. He didn't even have time to sit down for a well-earned lunch before they came back with their verdict, not guilty.

By the time he had finished his lunch, jury number one had their verdict ready - guilty.

He packed off the burglar for a lengthy spell in the chokey, and settled down for his third trial of the day.

But jury number three had to be discharged almost at once because one of them knew the defendant's family. Enter jury number four to take over.

Oh, I nearly forgot.

In between juries, the judge found time to adjourn the case against a fourth defendant and send two more to join the burglar in jail.

Judge Hoffman is no slouch!

-A certain portly Lib-Dem councillor has been ticked off by the bigwigs of City of York Council for sending Christmas greetings by e-mail to various functionaries and clogging up the system. He was told, more or less, e-mails are for council business not for shooting the breeze with private trivia.

-GEOFF my legal mate told me this just yesterday and it only cost me a pint. After a lengthy conference with the estranged husband, a York lawyer reported to his client: "Nancy, I have succeeded in making a settlement with your husband that is eminently fair to both of you."

"Fair to both!" exploded Nancy. "I could have done that myself. Why do you think I hired a lawyer?"